British private schools in China under threat as new ‘patriotic’ law comes in

BEIJING: A new “patriotic” education law is set to put a squeeze on British schools in China as Beijing steps up its efforts to tighten control of what is taught in its classrooms.

Less than five years ago, the Chinese and British media were full of reports about the “boom years” of British education in China. Elite British schools had seized the commercial opportunity of opening campuses to cater to wealthy Chinese families and the children of expats, and were opening new branches at a rapid clip. But after the Covid pandemic severely battered China’s appeal to foreign teachers, and the country’s government began a renewed push, even for private schools, to focus on patriotism and national security in the curriculum, internationally recognised brands are starting to face significant challenges.

“The rapid growth in both the number of British-partnered schools and school brands is now over,” concluded a report from Venture Education, a consultancy, earlier this year.

In the past two years, several international private schools have closed, including Dulwich’s preschool in Shenzhen.

Julian Fisher, Venture Education’s co-founder, cautioned that reports of British brands’ terminal decline in China might be overblown. But as schools adapt to recent rules governing what children can be taught, and where, “the dust is settling on the regulations and making it clear where the red lines really are”.

On 1 January, China’s new patriotic education law will come into effect, further tightening the screws on classrooms in which part of the appeal is supposed to be western-style teaching. The law requires that “all levels and types of school shall have patriotic education permeate the entire course of school education, doing a good job of ideology and political theory courses, and having patriotic education integrated into all subjects”.